


Order

by x-haphazard-x (hapabap)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Derse/Prospit Royalty AU, Gen, why the hell not
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:43:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hapabap/pseuds/x-haphazard-x
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Use of children as bargaining chips is always common among royal families. However sometimes politics and the other Powers that Be do not agree.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Order

"Who's there?"

"Kanaya, sir."

"Who? Oh for -- where the hell are my clothes."

Though he wasn't naked, Kanaya could guess that the dressing gown was not what he had arrived to the palace in.

"Probably somewhere. It's not really important where they are, so long as they're somewhere."

"Did something happen?"

"Things are always happening. I'm afraid you're going to have to be more specific," said Kanaya. She'd come into these chambers for a particular job, holding a candlestick in one hand and a glass in the other, and the only way she was going to be able to do it is if she acted like she belonged there. 

"To my clothes, I mean."

"Probably nothing aside from being coated in an exceptional amount of saliva, sir," said Kanaya. "Your brother says you fainted twice today. Does traveling always make you like this?"

"What? No." He sounded very emphatic about it. Possibly because it had happened, once or twice. If it was by Rose's estimation, then it was on previous visits to Derse. Kanaya wouldn't know. She hadn't been there the last time any Prospitian royalty had decided to show their faces here. Rose herself had only been a little girl, and John must have been small as well. Small enough that such exhaustion after the long, long trip would have gone unnoticed. But, perhaps he remembered. Or she was assuming too much. Or Rose was assuming too much. But, perhaps he remembered.

"Hm," Kanaya muttered noncommittally. "Either way. There's a physician to see you tomorrow."

"No, I'm fine," he said, pulling off the enormous duvet and swinging his feet to the other side of the bed. Everything about the room was enormous, actually. It was one of the better guest rooms, built and decorated to impress foreign dignitaries. Kanaya had never been in this room -- she had never had reason to until now. and it was rather impressive, she thought, but John seemed noticeably unstruck by it. More struck that he didn't wake up in the coach, possibly, and then there wasn't much room for anything aside from annoyance. "Where's Jake?"

"It's long past midnight," said Kanaya. "He's asleep, for sure."

"Oh." He set his feet on the floor anyway, toes enmeshing into the rich rug. After a pause, he asked, "Then why are you here?"

"Because I was told to check on you, that's why. You ought to go back to sleep." 

"Well, according to that, I've been asleep for at least ten hours," said John. "Why go back?"

Of course he was arguing with her. But it was too much to assume that he actually knew what happened and was refusing to go back there. Though that phrasing. Why go back. It sounded suspicious to her.

Thinking too much was her specialty, she thought.

"Well, the most pressing reason is because there's nothing to do at this hour," said Kanaya, "I don't think even the servants who tend the hearth will be up for a couple more hours, and they're not the best conversationalists. Bakers would be next, but they're all the way in the kitchens. And I would most certainly not recommend wandering the palace at night if you don't know where they're going. The rest of the cooks, but it's the same. The maids should be next... You did bring your own servants, correct? You should wake them, if you're truly so desperate, sir."

John stared blankly at her for a moment, as if that was the stupidest suggestion he had ever heard.

"Drink this, at least," she said, setting the glass on the nightstand. "And go back to bed. Even if you aren't actually so frail, it's still a poor impression on the lady to see you like this."

"I thought Roxy wasn't here yet," said John, taking the glass "She was on some pilgrimage. She won't be back for another few days."

"All the better reason to try to recover your reputation," Kanaya commented, and John took a sip. Her work here was done.

But then, he immediately spat it out.

"What is this?"

"Water, sir," she said.

"Water?"

"Yes," she said flatly, "Dersite water. You might want to get used to it, as living here you're going to be drinking an awful lot of it." And, with that admonishment, he finally drank, gulping down the whole glass as quickly as possible and cringed obviously. Kanaya feigned her best offense. "Now go back to sleep."

He would definitely go back to sleep. He may not know it, but he would.

She turned to leave, but before she could, John spoke once more.

"Hey. You said all the servants were asleep right now."

"I did," she said. 

"Then why are you still awake?"

"Those sentences have nothing to do with each other. Perhaps you did not notice my lack of deference. I'm not a servant, John."

Before more questions, she left, lighting her way back to Rose's room with her candle. Any more questions would have left him with more questions than answers, a truly undesirable position right before sleep.

\-----------

"That was a cruel thing," said Kanaya, finding Rose, as usual, reclined in a chair with her nose in a book. Unlike the servants, she did not keep such a strict schedule for waking and sleep. As Kanaya closed the door, she glanced up above the top of the pages, unconcerned with any apparent cruelty.

"Strange how you're so complicit, then."

"You haven't even seen him recently. He's not a large man. That was probably way too much."

She looked back down to the lines of text. "I could have guessed that. He wasn't supposed to drink all of it."

"He wasn't?"

"It's absurdly bitter. No one would. No sane person, anyway."

"Shit," said Kanaya.

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him that that's just what Dersite water tastes like. He drank it all."

Rose stifled a giggle as Kanaya sat down on the ottoman, and Rose daintily crossed her ankles.

"So what now?" asked Kanaya.

"More likely than not, the doctor won't be able to wake him," said Rose, "He'll proclaim exhaustion, the prince will wake in the middle of the next night to everyone here treating him like a delicate flower, and his sleep schedule will be thrown into horrible disarray like the rest of us."

"That's it?"

"I honestly don't think it will do him any serious harm except maybe to his reputation. Dirk drinks the stuff like spiced wine and nothing's happened to him. If you're seriously so concerned, be my guest to make him throw it up."

Kanaya's mouth twisted into a grimace at the thought.

"It was just a suggestion." Rose slipped her bookmark into the book, but did not yet close it. Rose could not just close a book. The way she read she had to slow to a stop, to calm her momentum to the point she could finally shut the pages. Kanaya stood and sniffed. Before, the task was done. Now, actually, she was finished for the night. "You're not actually going to do it, are you?"

"I was planning, actually, on a nap before sunrise."

"You can nap here, can't you?" asked Rose. "I do enjoy your company."

"I suppose," she conceded. Rose's rooms were much more comfortable than the acetic ones that were hers by right of the order. She'd done this countless times -- at first hesitantly, but now at least once a week. As an expatriate, she had been so surprised to learn that not even Dersite royalty cared where she spent her nights. Sometimes, the freedom was welcome, but sometimes, it made her acutely aware that her position here was a joke.


End file.
